Can You Hack an Election in 7 Minutes?
If it were up to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, they would see that all student loan debt is completely wiped away. Other prominent senators that are pushing for Joe Biden to forgive student loan debts are Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren.
This is not a good idea for many reasons.
Basically, the student-debt “crisis” is nowhere near as bad as some like to pretend: Most borrowers pay a small share of their income toward their loans, and borrowers who get into trouble can already have their loans delayed or forgiven through various programs.
The folks this system neglects are not people with huge debt burdens — who tend to make high incomes and are exceedingly well-covered by existing forgiveness programs anyway — but those with smaller debts, particularly those who didn’t finish college.
Forgiving debt for everyone is a poorly targeted policy no matter how you look at it. It helps the wealthy more than the poor, it’s not fair to people who paid off their debts early, and it’s not a good way to stimulate the economy during COVID. (As the center-left economist Jason Furman points out, the forgiven debt would be taxed, which would cut into any immediate economic effect.)
There’s also the legal question of whether the executive branch can get away with this. The law does give the executive an astonishingly broad power to “compromise, waive, or release” student loans, and both a letter from the Harvard Legal Services Center and an article in the Buffalo Law Review defend such a move as legal.
However, it would be a blatant abuse of the power the executive has been granted, and, as the law-review article explains, there are legitimate reasons why the courts might not be amused.
For instance, federal law also commands agencies to “try to collect” the debts they’re owed, and courts generally assume that policymakers don’t “hide elephants in mouseholes” — i.e., they don’t write tiny, low-profiles provisions into statutes that override vast swathes of policy.
Lastly, a word on the politics. The economy is in poor shape right now, with lesser-educated Americans having a particularly rough time. Shoveling tons of taxpayer money toward the college-educated would produce a major backlash, possibly — hopefully! — rivaling the Tea Party fervor a few years back.
The old adage many elders used to say is that “money doesn’t grow on trees”. This message was clearly not taught to many democrats as many of them believe everything should be free and the government can print as much as you need.
Democrats Are Trying To Steal The Election In Michigan, Wisconsin, And Pennsylvania
If it were up to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, they would see that all student loan debt is completely wiped away. Other prominent senators that are pushing for Joe Biden to forgive student loan debts are Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren.
This is not a good idea for many reasons.
Basically, the student-debt “crisis” is nowhere near as bad as some like to pretend: Most borrowers pay a small share of their income toward their loans, and borrowers who get into trouble can already have their loans delayed or forgiven through various programs.
The folks this system neglects are not people with huge debt burdens — who tend to make high incomes and are exceedingly well-covered by existing forgiveness programs anyway — but those with smaller debts, particularly those who didn’t finish college.
Forgiving debt for everyone is a poorly targeted policy no matter how you look at it. It helps the wealthy more than the poor, it’s not fair to people who paid off their debts early, and it’s not a good way to stimulate the economy during COVID. (As the center-left economist Jason Furman points out, the forgiven debt would be taxed, which would cut into any immediate economic effect.)
There’s also the legal question of whether the executive branch can get away with this. The law does give the executive an astonishingly broad power to “compromise, waive, or release” student loans, and both a letter from the Harvard Legal Services Center and an article in the Buffalo Law Review defend such a move as legal.
However, it would be a blatant abuse of the power the executive has been granted, and, as the law-review article explains, there are legitimate reasons why the courts might not be amused.
For instance, federal law also commands agencies to “try to collect” the debts they’re owed, and courts generally assume that policymakers don’t “hide elephants in mouseholes” — i.e., they don’t write tiny, low-profiles provisions into statutes that override vast swathes of policy.
Lastly, a word on the politics. The economy is in poor shape right now, with lesser-educated Americans having a particularly rough time. Shoveling tons of taxpayer money toward the college-educated would produce a major backlash, possibly — hopefully! — rivaling the Tea Party fervor a few years back.
The old adage many elders used to say is that “money doesn’t grow on trees”. This message was clearly not taught to many democrats as many of them believe everything should be free and the government can print as much as you need.